The Bharat Rashtriya Samithi (BRS) joined the chorus demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s ouster hours before the Opposition’s planned march to meet President Droupadi Murmu on Friday to press for his resignation.
BRS is the main Opposition party in Congress-ruled Telangana. The Congress has been leading the protests against Kumar. In many cases, the BRS had offered tacit support to the Narendra Modi government to pass bills in Parliament. BJD has been supportive of the BJP and averse to the Congress. Election officials allegedly found their access to the ECI software curtailed by the central IT team.
The Opposition protests began after an Indian Express investigation said election commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected at least 14 times between November 2025 and August 2026 to the decisions on SIR and even wrote to the cabinet secretary.
People aware of the matter said Rao’s post came after the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) reached out to BRS to expand support for Kumar’s resignation. Former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee this month said she is in touch with parties averse to the Bharatiya Janata Party but not friendly to the Congress. “A request for an appointment with the President has been made,” she said before leaving for Delhi.
On Tuesday, another fence-sitter, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), joined the protests as the Opposition marched to the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters. Banerjee arrived in Delhi on Thursday evening to join the Friday march.
How can one man be greater than the rights of 1.4 billion Indians? “Nothing is greater than the Constitution of India. And no indian citizen can be stripped of their right to vote. Gyanesh Kumar must go! “This nation has seen many individuals come and go -and it has stayed strong, it has survived beautifully. So why this desperation to protect one man? He reiterated the BRS’s stand that the Supreme Court should take suo motu cognisance of the irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and order an independent investigation headed by a sitting judge.
No individual is above the institution,” said former Telangana minister and BRS working president K T Rama Rao on X. Rao said time is up for Kumar and for anyone trying to build a quasi-system that destroys the soul of this great nation.
